If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times...!

[Haihao]

Hi,

Could you interpret for me the spirit of 'If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times...!' because I thought 'If I've told you once', then it could be only once. Why could it mean 'a thousand times' so as to imply 'Don't make me say it again!'?

Thank you.

haihao

[Alan]

Hi Haihao,

The idea, as you suggest, is that the speaker is fed up with saying something again and again. The argument runs that I must have told you something like this before in fact I'm sure I've told you many times before.

A
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story 'the' vs. 'a/an'